Ballet Central Diary

Richard's Final Diary - July 2005

WE’VE GRADUATED!!!!!! After three long years we’ve finally finished our training at Central School of Ballet. Also in the past week we gave the final performances of Ballet Central 2005.

The final stretch of Ballet Central started Monday week ago, with our final ‘get-in’ at the Bloomsbury Theatre. Also during this final stretch, Ballet Central was joined by the rest of Central School of Ballet for the school’s annual summer performances. The first performance with CSB had to be cancelled because of the terrorist attacks during the week. In fact many members of Ballet Central were caught up in the drama last Thursday as the Bloomsbury Theatre is situated right near those stations. We’re all very thankful that no one in the company was hurt, but it’s frightening to know how close we were.

On a brighter note the final performances of Ballet Central were a huge success, even though the audiences were somewhat diminished. Those who braved it in to central London saw two great shows and, from their response, I think they enjoyed it!! I was very pleased to have very good casting for the last shows and I think it’s fair to say we all gave it everything we had!! As the curtain came down on the last show there was a strange atmosphere on stage of joy, exhaustion and sadness. There were a few tears but I think everyone was proud of what they have achieved and we all knew we had to set our minds to our next challenge - our graduation the next day.

The graduation on the Sunday was supposed to be the only performance that day but because of the cancelled show there was an additional school show at 1 o’clock, which meant we had less time to rehearse our Grad’ solos. As soon as the curtain came down on the school show we were on the stage trying to fit in that last bit of rehearsal time. As I may have mentioned in one of my past entries I had chosen to perform the Bronze Idol solo from La Bayadere. One element of the solo which gave me cause for concern was the costume. I worked with Annie, our costume designer, on creating a pair of gold pants and an elaborate gold headdress. As well as that, my entire body was covered with gold body paint, which I had plenty of help applying from some female volunteers!!! It was a lot less fun washing it off and I’m still finding gold patches days later. The solo itself went pretty well. I had a little slip in the middle, but I’m trying not to focus on that - everyone said it looked fine but I’m a perfectionist. In fact I think everyone performed really well and everyone should be proud of themselves. Once the solos were finished we had a short interval to put on our suits and dresses for the presentation of the diplomas and awards. Unfortunately, Fergus our Artistic director couldn’t be there - but Elia, our ballet mistress was there, looking all dressed up and glamorous, which was really nice!!

Later there was a reception for us and our families with the staff from Central. It was really good to talk to the staff and chat about the future. Also it was great to see a couple of my favourite teachers, David Yow and Richard Glasstone, who left Central last year. It was helpful to catch up with them and to hear their advice. After the reception we went to a venue we hired in the West End. We had a great party and a lot of fun!!! It was a fantastic way to finish the tour and a very memorable way to finish three long years of hard work.

Richard

Verity's Final Diary - July 2005

We have just spent a week at the Bloomsbury Theatre where Ballet Central’s tour ended. We did two performances that week and we also joined the school show for three. They were our last performances so it was quite sad but we all made sure that they were our best and that we just enjoyed them. I was particularly happy because my father came to see me from Australia - I have only seen my family once in two years so it was cool that he could see me dance.

On the Sunday at the end of this busy week we graduated! It was something that I think we had all been stressing about as we all had to perform a solo and with all the performances had little time to focus on them. I chose a solo from the ballet Raymonda, which at one stage I started to regret as I ended up with very bruised toenails, because it contains many bourées. The performance of our solos started at 4pm and I was ‘lucky last’, which meant that I had little time to get dressed and ready before we had to be back on stage to be presented with our degrees. Everybody performed their solos really well and I was reasonably pleased with my own performance. We were all very supportive of each other and cheered rather loudly in the wings. It was such a relief when we had all finished but none of us wanted it all to be over.

After our solos there was the presentation on stage which we all got dressed up for, us girls in our dresses and the boys in their suits - everyone looked amazing. We then had a reception with the staff and our friends and families. After all this we left our parents to go to our own graduation party which we had organized and we all had a good time celebrating our two or three years together in which we had become very close.

Although we’ve graduated we are all in school for one more week as the Central Friends Garden Party is on Saturday. I guess this will be the last time that we are all together but it is a nice way to finish our time at Central.